Can Leaders Prevent Technology From Backfiring? Empowering Leadership as a Double-Edged Sword for Technostress in Care

How surface acting affects turnover intention among family doctors in rural China: the mediating role of emotional exhaustion and the moderating role of occupational commitment

BACKGROUND

Family doctors in rural China are the main force for primary health care, but the workforce has not been well stabilized in recent years. Surface acting is an emotional labor strategy with a disparity between inner feelings and emotional displays, provoking negative effects such as emotional exhaustion, occupational commitment reduction, and, consequently, increasing turnover rate. With the Conservation of Resources theory, this study explores how the surface acting of rural family doctors affects turnover intention through emotional exhaustion and investigates what role occupational commitment plays in this relationship.

METHODS

With a valid response rate of 93.89%, 953 valid data were collected by an anonymous self-administered questionnaire survey in December 2021 in Shandong Province, China. Cronbach's Alpha and confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) were used to estimate reliability and construct validity, respectively. The PROCESS macro in SPSS was performed to analyze the mediating and moderated mediation effects of surface acting, emotional exhaustion, occupational commitment, and turnover intention.

RESULTS

Reliability and validity indicated that the measurement instruments were acceptable. Surface acting had a direct positive effect on turnover intention (β = 0.481, 95% CI [0.420, 0.543]). Emotional exhaustion partially mediated the effect of surface acting on turnover intention (indirect effect: 0.214, 95% CI [0.175, 0.256]). Occupational commitment moderated the effect of emotional exhaustion on turnover intention (β = - 0.065, 95% CI [- 0.111, - 0.019]), and moderated the indirect effect of surface acting on turnover intention via emotional exhaustion (index of moderated mediation: - 0.035).

CONCLUSIONS

Emotional exhaustion partially mediates the relationship between surface acting and turnover intention among family doctors in rural China, and occupational commitment moderates the direct effect of emotional exhaustion on turnover intention and further moderates the mediating effect. Policymakers should pay more attention to the effects of emotional labor and emotional resource depletion on the stability of rural health human resources.

The Impact of Empowering Leadership on Employee Improvisation: Roles of Challenge-Hindrance Stress and Psychological Availability

Purpose

The purpose of this research is to explore the effect of empowering leadership on employee improvisation, including the mediating roles of challenge stress and hindrance stress as well as the moderating role of psychological availability.

Methods

Four proposed hypotheses were tested using hierarchical regression analysis and the bootstrapping method by reference to two waves of data collected in 2021 from 248 employees working for organizations located in southern China.

Results

The results showed that empowering leadership had a positive effect on employee improvisation, which was mediated by challenge stress and hindrance stress. That is, empowering leadership promoted challenge stress and decreased hindrance stress, thereby stimulating employee improvisation. Furthermore, psychological availability strengthened the positive effect of challenge stress on employee improvisation and weakened the negative effect of hindrance stress on employee improvisation. Psychological availability also moderated the indirect relationships among empowering leadership, challenge/hindrance stress and employee improvisation.

Conclusion

In theoretical terms, this study identifies a new antecedent of employee improvisation: empowering leadership. This study also advances knowledge concerning the mechanism by which empowering leadership exerts its influence by drawing on cognitive transactional theory. Moreover, this study’s exploration of the moderating role of psychological availability enriches the literature concerning the boundary conditions of the challenge-hindrance stress model. In practical terms, this study provides useful insights that can help organizations activate employee improvisation and manage employees’ work pressure.

Does Technostress Increase R&D Employees' Knowledge Hiding in the Digital Era?

Technostress as an antecedent factor exploring knowledge hiding continues to be seldomly discussed in the digital era. Based on the job demand-resource theory, this article introduces work exhaustion as a mediator variable and constructs a model that the five sub-dimensions of technostress (i.e., overload, invasion, complexity, insecurity, and uncertainty) affect knowledge hiding for R&D employees. Similarly, this study analyzes the moderation of workplace friendship as the resource buffering effect. Based on data from the 254 questionnaires of the two-stage survey, empirical results show that: (1) Techno-invasion, techno-insecurity, and techno-complexity have significant positive effects on work exhaustion, and techno-invasion has the greatest effect. However, techno-overload and techno-uncertainty have no significant relationship with work exhaustion. (2) Work exhaustion plays a mediating role in the relationships between the three aspects of technostress (techno-invasion, techno-insecurity, techno-complexity) and knowledge hiding; However, its mediating effects are insignificant in the relationships between the two aspects of technostress (techno-overload and techno-uncertainty) and knowledge hiding. (3) Workplace friendship negatively moderates the relationships between the two aspects of technostress (techno-invasion and techno-insecurity) and work exhaustion, leading to less knowledge hiding. Nonetheless, its negative moderation for the relationships between the two aspects of technostress (techno-overload and techno-uncertainty) and work exhaustion are insignificant. Empirical results further show that workplace friendship positively moderates the relationship between techno-complexity and work exhaustion.

The Impact of Empowering Leadership on Preschool Teachers’ Job Well-Being in the Context of COVID-19: A Perspective Based on Job Demands-Resources Model

The COVID-19 epidemic in the early 2020s is making a big difference for educators around the world. For the past 2 years, the curriculum and working patterns have been overturned in response to this epidemic, which has brought unprecedented challenges and physical and mental stress to preschool teachers. This situation can have a drastic impact on the acquisition of job well-being for preschool teachers. During this special time, the leader’s management style will also influence the psychological feelings of the organization’s staff. For example, empowering leadership is an important management function that empowers subordinates, emphasizes the meaning of work, promotes participation in decision-making, and expresses confidence. Therefore, in the current COVID-19 pandemic context, it is worthwhile to explore the topic of empowering leadership to ensure preschool teachers’ well-being, by balancing work demands and work resources in a way that facilitates a sense of organizational support and reduces job stress, while relatively fewer studies have been conducted on the relationship between preschool teachers’ job well-being in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic. Based on this, this study proposed a research model from the theoretical perspective of the Job Demands-Resources Model to explore the influence of empowering leadership, sense of organizational support, and job stress on preschool teachers’ job well-being in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic. To achieve the purpose of this study, a convenience sampling method was used to invite 500 preschool teachers in China to complete a questionnaire survey, and after removing invalid samples and data with incomplete answers, reliability and validity analyses and model fit tests were conducted, followed by a structural equation modeling method for path analysis. The results of the study showed that (1) in the kindergarten work context, empowering leadership showed a significant negative effect on job stress, but a significant positive effect on job well-being and a significant positive effect on sense of organizational support. (2) Sense of organizational support had a significant negative effect on job stress but a significant positive effect on preschool teachers’ job well-being. (3) Preschool teachers’ job stress and job well-being showed a significant negative effect. The contribution of this study was to explore the relationship between understanding leadership empowerment and preschool teachers’ job well-being in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic based on the Job Demands-Resources Model, which will facilitate educational organizational contexts to empower preschool teachers to work harder to reduce their job stress as well as enhance their sense of organizational support and promote the acquisition of job well-being.

Uncovering the complexities of remote leadership and the usage of digital tools during the COVID-19 pandemic: A qualitative diary study

The COVID-19 pandemic has fundamentally changed the way people work and live. More people than ever work from home. Due to the sudden changes, leaders are faced with various challenges, such as the fear of loss of control or keeping their teams motivated. In this study, we explore the daily experiences of leaders aiming to work effectively while using digital tools and working remotely during the COVID-19 pandemic. The overarching purpose of our study is to gain a better understanding about how leaders navigate the complexities of crisis-induced remote leadership by the use of digital tools by addressing the following questions: (1) Which practices do leaders use to deal with the complexities of day-to-day remote leadership during the COVID-19 pandemic? (2) How do different digital tools fit the diverse leadership practices? (3) What drives and inhibits leaders’ effectiveness in dealing with the complexities of remote leadership during the COVID-19 pandemic? To explore these research questions, we draw on longitudinal data from 155 qualitative diaries written by 31 leaders over a five-work-day period. We identify four categories of leadership practices, namely (1) solve problems collaboratively and monitor team progress, (2) create space for socialising and teambuilding, (3) make the team feel supported and encourage feedback and (4) communicate to build a virtual culture of trust. Our findings reveal that leaders demonstrate a broad repertoire of leadership practices, whereby relation orientation is more pronounced than task orientation. Moreover, leaders tend to focus on operational and team-oriented leadership practices, and they encounter the challenge of choosing the right digital tool to match their message. Our study’s results show that they use a variety of digital tools, but video conferences seem especially suitable for supporting remote leadership practices. However, several factors have impacts on remote leadership effectiveness, which we consider in the managerial implications.

Overcoming the "Dark Side" of Technology-A Scoping Review on Preventing and Coping with Work-Related Technostress

In the course of the digitalisation of work, the phenomenon of technostress is increasingly being examined. While there is a plethora of research on its causes and consequences, a growing body of research on mitigating work-related technostress is emerging. In order to identify opportunities to overcome this "dark side" of technology, this scoping review aims to provide a comprehensive overview of the current state of research on how to prevent and cope with work-related technostress. The databases PubMed, MEDLINE, PsycInfo, PSYNDEX, and Web of Science were searched in the time period between 2008 and 2021. The studies were screened independently by two authors and selected based on predefined inclusion and exclusion criteria. Sixty-two studies were included and their methodological quality was assessed using standardised checklists. Resources were identified at the technical, organisational, social and personal level, including, e.g., leadership, organisational and technical support as well as self-efficacy and IT mindfulness. Problem- and emotion-focused coping strategies were, e.g., seeking support or distancing from IT. None of the included studies investigated prevention measures, emphasising a dearth of research that needs to be addressed in the future. Nevertheless, the identified resources and coping strategies provide starting points to address adverse work- and health-related consequences and reduce work-related technostress.

Analysis of the Emotional Exhaustion Derived From Techno-Stress in the Next Generation of Qualified Employees

This study analyses the emotional exhaustion of students inhigher education, derived from the extremely technology-relatedstrain associated to the current COVID-19 pandemic in a conservation of resources' approach. Technostress, as source of emotional exhaustion, was investigated in a sample of 333 students in a medium size public university in Spain. Data was collected in May 2020, during the COVID lockdown. After literature review, a structural model was developed, linking technostress with emotional exhaustion. Results confirm the expected cause-effect relationships. In addition, the study reveals two mediator variables that must be considered when managing students' suffering, perceived stress and intrapersonal conflicts. This study contributes to the academic literature in the field of managing and mitigating suffering. They do so by providing both new knowledge and empirical evidence on the effects of technostress in the new generations that will soon join the working life.